This is a really exciting one! The Sit-Stand Computer Epoxy Desk! Or at least that's the best title of the project I could come up with based on the combination of what this is: Two slabs of some sweet maple wood joined together by a dark black epoxy in the center. Coated on top and bottom with an epoxy layer and then mounted onto sit-stand legs and is being used by my buddy has his main computer station.
This project took a LONG time due to several factors. It was the first epoxy project that I've given a shot at making (it might have helped to attempt something smaller at first). During the build I was both getting married and converting my half a garage workshop into a full shop by knocking down a wall into one of our bedrooms, which made it extremely difficult to keep everything clean while letting the epoxy set. Finally, it's a large project in its own. Either way, I'm really proud of how this desk came out and my buddy really loved it as well.
The first step was to take the two large walnut slabs and make one straight edge on each of the slabs that will be the outer edges of the desk. The natural sides will be the edges in the middle where the epoxy will join them together. I did this by simply taking a straight 2x4, clamping it to the wood, and running across the edge with a hand circular saw.
After having two clean edges, I used a wire brush with a power drill to clean up all of the rough edges on the slabs. This is important, since the epoxy needs to form a strong bond to the wood slabs and if the edges aren't clean, the epoxy might break off over time.
The next step is to create the form for where the epoxy will be poured. It is common to use melamine boards to create a form, but I decided to just used some MDF I had laying around with packing tape where the epoxy would be poured. I then used silicon caulking to seal off the gaps between the wood and the packing tape.
Next was to pour the epoxy, which was an extremely satisfying part. It took A LOT of epoxy, since I made a pretty wide gap (around 5-7") and 6' long across the table. You can save on cost for the epoxy here, by making it a shorter gap.
After all the epoxy was poured, I decided to make a router planer sled to make it easy to level the top of the table flat. you could also hand plane the table flat or find a commercial planer that is large enough to fit a table like this inside, but I think the router planer sled was a really cheap option (I just used leftover MDF to make it), as well as being a fast and effective option.
After being planed down and sanded clean, I applied a final epoxy top coat to get a glass-like, smooth finish across the entire table. This made it look absolutely amazing as you can see in the final pictures at the end.
Finally, I had my buddy help in flipping the table over and attach the sit-stand legs to the bottom of the table.
And here are some photos of the finished product! Photo credit to Simon K. Photography! I hope you all enjoyed this build - thanks as always for reading!
